A black girl’s reading list: 10 books to inspire and challenge

By Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi via https://www.theguardian.com/

The authors of Taking Up Space, recent Cambridge graduates, list the books that have given them ‘permission to dream’

Before university, during our years there and in the time since, the books that we have been exposed to have shaped our ideas, our writing – and ultimately how we see the world. Being able to see our realities reflected in the books we read has made us who we are. Some of these books were difficult to read and forced us to confront difficult truths about our place in the world. But we also found joy, and these books gave us permission to dream. 

Reading stories about lives like ours gave us the confidence to tell our own. That’s exactly what we aim to do in Taking Up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change, which ends with a list of our favourite reads to inspire black girls everywhere to look beyond a canon that may not include them. Here are some of them.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Though I went to school in Nigeria for more than five years, Half of a Yellow Sun was my first real encounter with the devastating Biafran civil war of the late 1960s that remains a sore memory for many Nigerians. Against this

Though I went to school in Nigeria for more than five years, Half of a Yellow Sun was my first real encounter with the devastating Biafran civil war of the late 1960s that remains a sore memory for many Nigerians. Against this…

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